"Maury, I am [insert huge number here] percent sure that he is the father of my baby!"

—Almost every mother seeking paternity on the show from a deadbeat dad.

Maury, formerly titled The Maury Povich Show, is a syndicated daytime talk show where host Maury Povich talks with guests about various problems and issues in their lives, including teenage pregnancy, medical conditions, phobias, paternity tests, domestic violence, and more.

The show first aired in 1991 and was produced by Paramount Domestic Television in national syndication. In 1998, the show began exploring "trash" topics like cheating spouses and DNA tests. Not coincidentally, around this time, he had defected from Paramount to what is currently NBCUniversal Television, who also produce and distribute fellow trash TV survivor Jerry Springer.

The most common element used in the show is DNA tests, sometimes taken to the extreme if a single man is accused of making multiple kids from different women, or when a single woman brings multiple men on the show (sometimes over the span of several episodes) to find her baby's father. The men always say, "That baby don't look nothing like me!"

Many episodes also feature rowdy, out of control teen girls who disrespect and abuse their mothers and/or siblings (they always say "You don't know me!" when confronted about said wild behavior); lie detector tests; men who treat their women like slaves; and crazy footage caught on tape (cheaters caught in the act, insane accidents, etc.). While not shown very often, there have been many episodes of mothers with extremely obese toddlers and young kids (usually ranging from ages 3-7) and their mothers who always are either clueless as to why their child keeps getting fatter; who know they're giving their kids too much junk, but don't know what to do; or ones that firmly believe making their child dangerously fat makes their kid special and beautiful. There have also been episodes about guests trying to overcome their phobias, missing children, and "Maury's Talented Kids", where really cute kids sing, dance, etc., sometimes for cash prizes or family vacations.

Around certain holidays, such as Valentine's Day or Christmas, the show will celebrate those holidays by having either a group of people dressed as women (but some are men or vice versa, so the guests have to figure out who is who) or have Jack Hanna bring in a bunch of exotic animals to entertain the children in the audience.

You ARE the father, and a user of these tropes:

All Abusers Are Male: Pretty much the sole motivation for the show to have episodes where a boyfriend/husband is mentally and physically abusing their girlfriend/wife. The show tries to avert this by showing wild and out of control teenage girls abusing their parents and/or siblings, but it then became just the inverted version of this, where the show makes it look like only teenage girls are capable of abusing their families, and not teenage boys.

The man who said "That (girl) can't be my baby because I only make boys".

The man who claimed that he wasn't the father because the baby had six fingers.

Another who insisted that a baby wasn't his because the baby did not have six fingers.note He was actually right about this.

One who somehow thought that when a woman who thought she couldn't have children had a baby anyway, this meant it couldn't be his because she was supposed to be infertile, but yet another man could get her pregnant.

"That baby can't be mine because s/he has blue eyes!"note Permanent eye color (regardless of race) is usually not determined until a child is somewhere between 12-18 months. Cue stupid look on the guy's face when he's told that he is the father!

"That isn't my baby because they look [insert different race here]."note There usually is no real basis for this claim other than the man believes that the woman cheated on him or is very promiscuous. In addition, there are several variations of this claim.

A rare case of mother stupidity on this show which doesn't involve her promiscuity, or at least not directly. The potential father denied being the father because the baby was clearly racially mixed, and both the mother and he were white. The mother's response? "Skin color's got nothin' to do with nothin'". Needless to say, he was not the father. For some reason, the mother actually got furious and went after the guy, and when asked why, she said something along the lines of "Because he's a (bleep bleep bleep)!", making her look even worse.note "Nothing to do with nothing" is a double negative and cancels itself out; by saying that, she admitted skin color had everything to do with it, which it did.

The exact opposite happened in another episode. A white couple had a baby who was obviously half-black, but the husband was unaware of his wife's affair and was totally convinced the baby was his.

In another episode, a black woman brought in a baby that was clearly 100% black, and claimed that a white man was the father. Obviously, he wasn't.

A pair of episodes featured a white woman who brought in a baby that was clearly 100% white, and each time she claimed that a black man was the father. Neither man was.

In another episode, a white woman had a clearly Asian-looking baby while the assumed father was a Hispanic man. Needless to say, the audience could easily tell he's not the father, and it was proven true.

Sometimes, there's a mother who just had the baby about two weeks prior to the show, and the father is right away saying that it doesn't look like him.note Newborns don't look like either parent for the first few weeks or months. They all kind of look the same. And most of the time, it turns out these men are the fathers. One guest was actually right about this. However, he still stayed with his girlfriend after finding out he was right.

The father's right-handed. The mother's right-handed. The child's left-handed. Ergo, the kid's not his because two right-handed people can't have a left-handed child!note In reality, the correlation between parents' handedness and their children's handedness is moderate at best.

One guest stated that he couldn't be the father because he only had one testicle. He ended up being the father.

Many, many men claim they can't be the father because, "we only had sex one time!". One time is all it takes.

One potential father in 2016 actually averted this. He used an actual genetic tool, a Punnett square (which shows the potential offspring of two parents using dominant and recessive genes), as his argument that a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby was not his, but rather than cite the square as definitive proof, he also acknowledged that the chance of him being the father was still there. He was the father in the end, and he took it well.

It's difficult to feel sorry for the women who go out of their way to taunt potential fathers only to be proven wrong afterward.

It's impossible to feel sorry for men who plead and cry when they get caught cheating.

Attention Whore: All the guests, if you think about it. Why else would they go on national television to share their problems?

Audience Surrogate: Maury himself for the TV audience, especially in the rare times where he calls out the studio audience.

Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Frequently seen with couples where one thinks their other is cheating on them (usually while the girlfriend or wife is pregnant), but the lie detector shows the accused has been faithful. Cue the hugs and tears.

The Baby Trap: It's pretty obvious that some of the mothers attempt to do this in order to get child support out of the supposed fathers.

Beneath the Mask: Some of the men, and their family members or current girlfriends/wives if they are with them, who were initially happy that they weren't the father of a child, reveal that it was just an act and they are actually furious/emotional about the results.

Do not claim that the lie detector was either rigged or malfunctioning, or Ralph Barbieri will call you out for it. Likewise, never question Ralph's integrity in general. For example, one guest insinuated that his girlfriend slept with Ralph so she could pass the lie detector test. Ralph looked like he was ready to kill the guest.

Better to Lie Than Be Truthful: Some guests will not submit to lie detector tests, or always lie on them, and then still try to lie after being caught lying.

Bittersweet Ending: One man came on the show because he wanted to prove that he was the father of a woman who was in her late teens/early 20s. He very much wanted to be her father (it was the mother who was denying it), and even went so far as to tell her that even if he isn't the father, she can come to him for anything. He also noted that as happy as he would be to find out he's the father, he would also be very sad, because he'd missed out on her whole life because the mother claimed someone else was the father. He turned out to be the father.

Especially when an obvious cheater is called out by a lie detector test, and they keep insisting they're innocent.

During one DNA test episode, a white couple came on the show for two DNA tests for their fraternal twins. Despite the fact that it was obvious to everybody, including the fiancé, that the fiancée cheated on the former and that he wasn't the father, she claimed that she never cheated and the twins' dark complexion was due to it being hereditary on her side of the family. The DNA tests revealed that he wasn't the father. Even after the truth came out, she still claimed that she hadn't cheated.

One guest was given a chance to be honest before Maury read the results of her lie detector test. She decided to lie about everything and was promptly called out for it. Afterwards, she was forced to tell her boyfriend the whole truth about her misdeeds.

One guy who was accused of cheating was shown falling for the sexy decoy, making out with her on camera. It's heavily implied that he even sent her nude photos. When confronted with this, the guy claimed that it wasn't him in the photos.

Bratty Teenage Daughter: The show has a whole genre of episodes dedicated to extreme versions of these, teenage children who are shamelessly disrespectful towards their parents and engage in reckless sex and violence, use drugs and alcohol, sometimes even prostituting, prostituting other girls, affiliating themselves with gangs, or selling drugs.

Bratty Half-Pint: The out-of-control preteens, who can be just as bad, oftentimes even worse than their teenage counterparts, as well as some older guests who may be physically small, but have mouths and/or egos more fitting of a person who is 8 feet tall. One particularly loud paternity guest searching for her child's father happened to be a dwarf who looked to be well under 4 feet tall.

Censored for Comedy: The show is randomly sprinkled with bleeps, even during (seemingly) silent moments. It becomes especially jarring when Maury is trying to say something and one of the guests, or the audience, curses, which the show has to bleep out. This creates a weird second of silence which throws everything off.

Chocolate Baby: Every once in a while a white woman will bring a clearly mixed-race baby on the show claiming that it's their white boyfriend/husband's baby, when obviously it's not, although in one episode the white husband did believe it was his.

One can't help but laugh at the fact that some of the women who come on the show say they're absolutely positive a man is the father of their baby seconds before a DNA test proves them wrong. One specific example of this was a woman who said she was a million percent sure that a man was the father of her baby, although she claimed she was pregnant for 10and a half months. After the DNA test proved that the man in question was not the father, the woman broke down in tears and ran backstage, screaming "I knew it!" over and over again.

One particularly cringe-worthy example involved a white woman that had a mixed-race baby. She pointed to two possible men, both black, and when neither of them turned out to be the father, she woefully cried "They're the only two black men I've slept with!", much to the amusement of the audience. Afterwards, Maury then explained to the viewers that they later tested yet another potential father, and he wasn't the father either. Oh, and neither was the next man after that.

Examples of negative paternity results when a woman claims that the man was the only person she has ever had sex with almost always end up being this. If they end up coming back and get additional negative paternity tests, this makes things even more awkward.

Disappeared Dad: On the out of control teen girl episodes, it is almost always only the mother present. Rarely will a father ever appear and whether or not there is a father is never mentioned, implying that many of these teen girls have single mothers. This is usually the case for teen girls who show up for DNA tests as well. Furthermore, when a father does appear, it's treated as a huge deal.

Some men and women will celebrate when they pass the first question(s) of the lie detector test, only to fail the rest of the test. The accuser, and occasionally Maury, will tell the accused this while the results are being read.

Some women have also done this when they think a guy is the father of their child shortly before Maury reveals that the guy isn't. One notable example of this is Telia. She was bragging that her search for her daughter's father was over and that this would be the last time we would see her on the show. Telia was incredibly confident that the guy was the father. This was despite him being the eleventh man that she tested. The guy, predictably, was not the father. While Telia was wrong about the results, she was right about one thing; she never came back on the show again.

One guy was brought on the show, who'd had seven paternity tests in the past, all proving he was the father. Maury even joked that the guy probably knew more about paternity tests that he did. He was on the show because a former lover, as well as his current lover, and the mother of several of his kids, were both convinced that the former lover's daughter was his eighth child. Maury pulls out the results, and gets as far as "You are" before the woman looks smugly at him and says she knew it. Maury, unperturbed, continues his sentence by saying "NOT the father!"

Female guests are usually treated more sympathetically than male guests.

The show will occasionally leave out some details about a guest during an update episode in order to make them look better. One notable example is Ricktoria. During her first two appearance on the show, she found out that her boyfriend Clinton was not only cheating on her with her mom, but was trying to get the latter pregnant. On her third appearance, Ricktoria revealed that she cheated on Clinton with his best friend Juan. She then revealed to both of them that she lied about being pregnant. Ricktoria's third appearance is usually not mentioned in updates about her.

Happens during the rare event where both a man and a woman are hoping that the man is the father and the DNA test proves that he isn't.

A huge percentage of the guests on the show, especially the wild teens and preteens, end up being arrested numerous times and having multiple children after their appearances on the show. Some particularly egregious examples of this include the wild teen girl who was arrested for murdering someone, one teen girl who ended up being murdered herself, and the couple who was charged with sexually assaulting the sibling of the child they brought on the show.

Even if the guy is the father of a baby, he is still going to have to deal with an abrasive, emotional wreck for up to 18 more years, and the woman is going to have to deal with a man who likely wants nothing to do with her or her child. Worst of all, the child will have to deal with two people who, more likely than not, won't give them a very good life because of this.

Dramatic Pause: Maury will occasionally do this while he is reading the results of a DNA or lie detector test.

Dude, Not Funny!: During the phobia episodes, the other guests will call out the audience members for laughing at people for having very real, flight-or-fight reactions to being confronted with their fears.

Despite the fact that some men initially celebrated onstage when they found that they weren't the father of a child, they will help Maury comfort and encourage a sobbing mother backstage, no matter how abrasive she was beforehand.

It seems as if, no matter how many times a person cheated, their guilt and infidelity is tossed out of the window as long as their infidelities didn't result in any questionable paternity, such as a woman getting pregnant by another man, or a man getting another woman pregnant while in a relationship. A woman will hug and kiss their man after DNA tests prove he isn't the father of another woman's baby even though he lied to her about it, and men will hug and kiss women if they are the father of their baby even if the woman did, in fact, cheat on him many times. A particularly egregious example of this was the case of a woman who was being accused by her husband of cheating with another man and the husband believed that the woman's child may belong to that man. A lie detector test proved the woman had sexual contact with that man many times.note It turned out that the man in question was married to someone close to the woman. However, a DNA test proved he was the father of the woman's baby. The woman then made the man kiss her feet, which he did.

Even Evil Has Standards: The wild teen girls will often admit to being less-than-perfectly behaved, but they also would deny doing things like having sex in their parents' homes or prostituting themselves, saying that they have more respect for themselves/their parents than that. Whether they were actually telling the truth is a totally different subject.

It's not out of the ordinary for accused guests to try to trick their loved ones by using confusing terminology, such as a guest who claims they are a virgin saying they aren't having sex, or someone saying they aren't cheating on their spouse, which suggests they may have done it many times, but for some reason, may not be currently seeing anyone their loved one doesn't know about.

Usually, guests who cheat on their boyfriends and husbands around the time they get pregnant say that the child in question may not be their boyfriend/husband's child. One woman who cheated on her boyfriend, however, went an extra mile by explicitly telling everybody that "her five-year-old son is not his". When asked to explain how she was so sure, she said it was because she cheated on him with about six other guys.The child in question was not her boyfriend's.

Often happens when a denying man is proven not to be the father of a child or when someone is exonerated of cheating on their significant other. The audience, who most likely booed the person beforehand, will often clap and cheer for the accused while heckling and booing their accusers, especially in the case of paternity results.

In a specific example, a 17-year-old girl was on Maury because she was furious that the boy she claimed got her pregnant not only was denying her baby, he also started dating her older sister and he might have gotten her pregnant as well, and the younger sister didn't believe that her ex-boyfriend was the father of her older sister's baby, either. The younger sister is looked upon sympathetically by Maury and the audience who, as usual, heckles and boos the older sister and her boyfriend when they come out on stage. The paternity results reveal that the boy was the father of the older sister's baby, but not the father of the younger sister's. The ex-boyfriend and the older sister seem legitimately hurt that the younger sister lied to them, which puts them in a more sympathetic light while the younger sister is portrayed as the liar, not helped by the fact that the younger sister ended up flying into a rage and tried to attack her older sister's boyfriend, which Maury ends up calling her out on.

In the plastic surgery episodes, many girls got liposuction due to being insecure about their weight and the bullying they received from it.

The audience was and is quite ruthless towards overweight people, women especially, and would and will often laugh and make "eww" noises towards overweight people backstage.

Fidelity Test: The "sexy decoys," wherein a beautiful woman flirts with a man backstage. 99 times out of 100, the man takes the bait, then gets called out on it when he insists he would never cheat. Though the man often gets just as mad about being set up.

First Girl Wins: Averted often, in cases where women are fighting with men over paternity explicitly due to a presence of a new girlfriend/wife, even moreso if the man in question is not the father or if the man is the father but still refuses to be in the woman's/child's life due to his new significant other's influence. Played straight in cases where the man ends up leaving his new girlfriend for his old one after favorable paternity/other results and they end up being a family.

Flipping the Bird: Used to be aimed constantly at the studio audience when they reacted negatively towards out of control teens and other guests.

During DNA tests, if multiple men are involved, the first guy that Maury mentions when he reads the results will never be the father. For instance, suppose Bob and John were unsure if they were the father of a child; the second you hear Maury say "When it comes to [child's name], Bob...", you can immediately conclude, regardless of what John's result is, that Bob is not the father.

If Maury opens up the lie detector results asking if the cheater has had sexual intercourse outside of the relationship, they bombed the test. It will just get worse from there.

You'd think the guests who are brought out to be ambushed with big secrets would guess ahead of time what was about to happen. This is particularly egregious on cheating episodes, when they put a suspected cheater in the green room with a sexy decoy to see if he makes a move. Naturally, the guy always takes the bait; if he'd ever seen the show, he'd know there was a camera taping his every move.

One genre savvy man subverted this when he proposed to his girlfriend, holding up a board with "Will You Marry Me?" on it towards the camera.

Some men caught cheating with the sexy decoy claim that they're "only playing along" because doing that is "expected" of them when they come on the show. Maybe he has a point, but nobody buys it.

When one man was shown the decoy footage, he insisted that it wasn't him! While the tape is blurry, Dave Vitali, the guy who administers the decoy test and observed the entire thing, was sitting right there in the audience.

Getting Crap Past the Radar: There are (probably) occasional unintentional censoring fails here and there, most commonly very brief obscene gestures that somehow sneak past the censors. However, in previews for episodes, the previews will often cut off just right after the obscene content pops up on the screen so that the viewer only sees it for a split second, whether it's swearing or showing the middle finger. Usually, the obscene content will not be censored in the previews (although profane language will be slightly obscured, mouths will still be moving and you can make out what they're saying). The same thing is also prone to happening in the credits, especially older episodes.

Ghetto Name: All over the place. This includes names that are very embarrassing, hard to pronounce, or are spelled weirdly.

Guilty Pleasure: The guiltiest. Many people like to watch the show due to the outrageous behavior of many of the guests.

Heroic B.S.O.D.: They may not always be heroic BSODs, but examples include:

A mother finds out the man she thought was her baby daddy isn't the father after all. This is usually accompanied by her running backstage in hysterics.

A mother with two potential baby daddies finds out the man she wants to be the father isn't (and vice versa).

A man finds out he is indeed a father when he clearly doesn't want to be.

An accuser, when a lie detector test determines that their partner is unfaithful.

A mother with two or more potential baby daddies finds out that none of the guys are the father.

A father finds out his beloved child is not biologically his due to the mother's affair.

The lie detector exonerates the accused but also finds the accuser guilty of what they were trying to pin on the other.

Horrible Judge of Character: There are cases where a man believes he is not the father of his mate's baby because someone else said it wasn't. This usually comes from people who don't like the man's girlfriend/wife for various reasons, such as the man's sibling, mother, or best friend. Subverted when the accuser(s) are proven right and the man made the right choice all along.

Some guests who accuse others of infidelity are usually guilty of this themselves. Depending on the situation, either the accused tends to pass the lie detector test while the accuser doesn't or they both will fail it.

The wild teen girls are notorious for calling the women who bring them on the show terrible names, like whore, slut, and bitch, while bragging about how men they have slept with. Occasionally they will also brag about how much money and gifts they have received for doing this.

People will often talk about how they love their significant others despite the fact that they cheat on or abuse them. One particularly egregious example was a woman who said she "can't live without (her boyfriend)", despite her cheating on him with 6 different men, all within the period of her conceiving her son (the child in question was not his).

One woman who claimed that either another woman's boyfriend or his cousin was the father of her baby refused to take a lie detector test in regards to sleeping with the other woman's boyfriend (the woman's boyfriend denied he slept with her, but the woman on for the paternity test said they did have sex and he may be her baby's father) saying that "he knows they had sex", and criticized the woman's boyfriend, saying if he didn't have anything to hide, he'd take the test, despite her refusal to take the test herself. To make things even more suspicious, after a DNA test proved that the other woman's boyfriend's cousin was not the father, the accusing woman seemed very shocked and upset, despite the lady's boyfriend not yet being ruled out. The second DNA test proved that the other woman's boyfriend wasn't the father either.

Jerkass Has a Point: Believe it or not, the out of control teen girls do have some good ideals, but apply them poorly. For example, one girl said she did what made her happy and didn't care what anyone thought. The mindset itself is good, but she was using it as an excuse for her wrongful behavior.

Large Ham: A lot, if not a majority, of the guests on the show react in ways that are clearly tailored to garner attention and sympathy. Predictably, this results in some over the top behavior. This often backfires, as someone who goes into hysterics after hearing unfavorable paternity or lie detector results, will usually do nothing more than attract more scorn from the home and studio audiences.

The original version of the series, The Maury Povich Show which aired from 1991 to 1998, is this compared to the one we have now.

The Christmas specials where Maury would allow children into his show where people would bring in live animals. Those specials have a more friendly and fun tone compared to the normal episodes.

Lie Detector: Which are always deemed accurate, no matter how implausible the accusations actually are. Apparently, it is so good that the show can determine how many times a guest has cheated.

Lower-Class Lout: Many of the guests, especially the out of control teen girls, are walking stereotypes of lower-class people. Several of these girls admit to having assaulted people, stolen money or items, or multiple sexual partners.note To make things worse, some of them are actually proud of their trashy behavior. One girl, Rayletha, admitted to being drunk while she was on the air.

Malaproper: Happens all of the time on this show, almost always originating from the guests. Notable examples include the man who denied he was the father of a baby because he had a "receiving hairline" note "Receding hairline" and the baby didn't, and a woman who claimed she was stuck in the hospital with "walking limonia" note Walking pneumonia while her boyfriend/husband was out cheating on her. Another woman said she believed her five children belonged to the same man because they looked like "quadriplets". note quadruplets, or four babies.

Nearly every preview of the next segment before the commercial break are played in a way that makes some situations look a lot worse than it is, due to edited audio and/or splicing clips together.

Sexy decoys are probably used by the show way more often than what is shown on television due to the fact that the show likely only shows clips where the accused cheater is caught doing something questionable with the decoy, and most times, the guests are smart enough not to take the bait.

Due to time constraints, especially and primarily in older episodes, a lot of content will be omitted from the final tape that is aired on television. A prime candidate for this would be favorable lie detector results when the guest failed all of the other questions, which makes some lie detector tests seem very incomplete due to allegations emphasized on earlier on the show never being explicitly confirmed or denied to the home audience or not. Newer episodes seem to improve greatly on this and they seem to show the entire lie detector results, even if a guest only failed one question.

Some guests' prior appearances may not be mentioned in detail or even at all in updates about them (see Noodle Incident below). This is probably due to the fact that it may not be auspicious to the guests of the show to show the audience what happened during those appearances. For example, Simone (a woman who tested many men for her son) was incorrectly stated to have appeared on the show 10 times during one appearance, when it was really 13 times; the other times were related to her difficulties with her boyfriend, whom she cheated on 200 times. In Simone's earlier appearances where those shows were referenced in detail, Simone was often ridiculed by the audience. A guest named Sholonda was stated to have only brought two children on the show (a daughter and a son), when in reality, she also brought a second daughter to the show. During that appearance, Sholonda and her husband were apparently quite hostile towards each other and that appearance was never mentioned again a while after it aired.

Momma's Boy: Some of the male guests are this or are perceived to be this. As a result, they are usually ridiculed by the studio audience.

Mood Whiplash: Usually when a DNA test or the lie detector is involved. The most notable examples includes:

The studio audience will get on a man when he says that he isn't the father of a child, only for them to cheer for said man the exact moment it is revealed that he was right.

A man that initially interacts negatively with the audience when he says that he isn't father of a child will sometimes go into the audience to celebrate with them when it's revealed that he was right. This also occasionally happens when it's revealed that a guy isn't a cheater. Furthermore, some men will immediately go back to interacting negatively with the studio audience afterwards.

A woman who is very confident that a man is the father of her child prior to results being read immediately runs backstage in tears when she finds out that he isn't.

The studio audience will always get on a man if he is accused of cheating. If he passes the lie detector test, the audience will cheer for them.

My Beloved Smother: There has been several that have appeared on the show. Most are the mothers of the featured guests.

The episode "I'm Praying My Brother Is Not My Baby's Father" has gained a significant amount of infamy for the Incest Subtext involved in it. The title is in reference to a case where a woman had to get both lie detector and DNA tests after she was accused of cheating on her boyfriend with his brother, and she did not know who the father of her child was; it's supposed to be in the boyfriend's voice. In a truly shocking twist, she admitted to cheating before the results were even read. Neither the boyfriend's brother, nor the boyfriend himself, were the father. In a small bit of consolation, however, she did pass the lie detector about cheating with his brother.

This was subverted once in the episode "Is My Brother My Baby's Father?", where a woman, Lakinia, who was on the show before with her boyfriend Quentin to reveal she cheated on him and that her son might not be his (he wasn't the father) and who was raised in several group homes ended up cheating on her boyfriend Quentin with a guy she just met named Curtis, who also grew up in foster homes. Later, at a family reunion, it was discovered that Lakinia and Curtis shared the same birth mother, who was never in either of their lives. Curtis even wanted to be the father of Lakinia's son. To make things even more sordid is that Quentin and Curtis share the same father, which makes Lakinia and her fiancé Quentin basically stepsiblings. And the DNA tests proved that neither of them was the father.

Shows with recurring paternity guests will have extravagant and scandalous titles like "34 Men...Is One of Them the Father?" but these titles usually are referring to the amount of men that every guest in that episode tested, not just one particular guest.

Several guests make multiple appearances on the show; however, it is not out of the ordinary for one or more of the guest's prior appearances to not be mentioned in updates about them (i.e. a guest appears 5 times, but only appearances 1, 3, and 4 are mentioned in episode 5).

During a different kind of Noodle Incident, a segment of an out-of-control teen episode ended with the audience suddenly screaming before the show abruptly cut out. Afterwards, the girl from the segment, who appeared on the show a few months prior, was escorted off of the stage by security guards while other teen girls on the stage were cheering for her and is not seen again until a bit later in the episode. We aren't sure what happened that resulted in the girl being detained by security, but the girl said she wanted to get help so "things like this never happen again". There was an update on the girl, and the appearance where she is escorted off of the stage is never mentioned even once during the update.

Oh, Crap!: The guests with phobias run off the stage in hysterics whenever Maury forces them to confront their fears.

Whenever the show does a DNA test episode, expect the following to always happen at least once:

The mother is [insert huge number here] percent sure that the man in question is the father of their baby.

The accused deadbeat comes up with an excuse on why he couldn't be the father.

The potential father claims that the child doesn't look anything like him, the mother counters that the child looks exactly like him.

If the man is the father:

The new father gets upset because now he has to deal with a woman he can't stand.

The mother acts very smug and gets all in the father's face on how she was right all along, and how he'll have to take care of her baby now. If someone close to the mother happens to be there, they will (usually) get all in the father's face as well.

The mother does an over the top Happy Dance. If some close to the mother is there, they will (usually) join in.

The new father eventually accepts responsibility of the baby and tries to make amends with the mother. Subverted if the father still tries to reject the baby.

If the man is not the father:

The mother runs backstage in tears with Maury going after her to comfort her. Bonus points if the man goes after her to gloat.

The stories of the man and woman always contradict each other, although in a lot of cases, it's obvious that the man is lying to make himself look better (such as saying that the woman is promiscuous). This is also the case for women who claim that the guy(s) they think is the father isn't.

Sometimes, the woman is just way too upset to accept anything the man says, even when he's proven not to have done anything seriously wrong.

Really Gets Around: Half the guests, but special attention goes to the mothers searching for their baby daddy and bringing upwards of a dozen men on the show. She would have slept with all of these guys within the span of a month.

Whether or not a male guest is the father of a child. How the man reacts to the revelation depends on the situation.

If a guest is a cheater or not.

Right for the Wrong Reasons: One episode has a woman accusing her husband of cheating on her with other women, which he denied. It turns out to be true; he did not sleep with other women. He slept with other men.

Rule of Three: Whenever a cheating man or woman confesses their secrets to their significant other, the secrets always amount two or three, but no more.

Sassy Black Woman: The vast majority of black female guests on the show fall under this, especially the ones who are out of control teens.

Scare 'em Straight: This is applied in full force in the out of control teen girls and abusive boyfriend/husband episodes. The offenders in question are sent to a place to show what will happen if they don't change. Bonus points if the people sent there break down in tears and promise they will change for the better. Subverted when a follow up episode shows that the offenders learned absolutely nothing, especially if they were recorded to show remorse in their first appearance.

Maury employs a "sexy decoy", an attractive woman claiming to be another guest, to hit on men suspected of cheating in the green room. It's shocking how much this always works.

Some women on the show have actually gone so far as to name their son after a potential father. Flip a coin, and there's a good chance that child is not actually the potential father's son.

Maury occasionally does this to himself concerning DNA tests. If a lie detector test is involved and the results are read beforehand, he'll always state that it is irrelevant. Sometimes though, the results of a DNA test will show that the lie detector was indeed relevant.

Serial Escalation: Occasionally, a woman will make repeat appearances, dragging several men along each time for a DNA test. Double digits isn't uncommon.

In 2004, a woman was on the show because her wild 16 year old daughter was extremely desperate to have a baby and admitted that she had sex thousands of times to get pregnant and she was desperate to get her to stop before she succeeds in getting pregnant. Her older daughter ended up changing her life, but she had another daughter who was 14 and was also very desperate to have a baby. The younger daughter was given a pregnancy test and she was proven to be pregnant, effectively rendering her mother's efforts, to stop her daughter from becoming a teen mom useless. This is also applies to any wannabe-teen-mom who ended up getting pregnant anyway after going through emotional jail or mother-for-a-day programs, sometimes more than once.

Complicated paternity stories that involve numerous elements such as whether or not someone cheated, or whether or not the people involved still have feelings for each other, another woman who is saying that someone's husband or boyfriend is the father of their child, a man claiming he is the father of a committed woman's child, or a new significant other who can't stand the accuser or the accused in some cases become essentially meaningless after the DNA test results are read. A general rule of thumb when it comes to Maury is that no matter what happened, no matter how lengthy, complex, emotional, or tumultuous the build up was, nothing matters as long as the paternity results are favorable for the party in question, which means someone can cheat all they want as long as they don't get anyone pregnant/they don't get pregnant by anybody else. In some cases, a person is hit with a ton of bricks when they hear that their boyfriend did indeed get someone else pregnant or their girlfriend did cheat and they did get pregnant by somebody else, only to act as if absolutely nothing happened and more often than not, still slam the person who their significant other cheated with even though they were proven right, though they may have been wrongful for sleeping with someone who they knew was in a relationship.

She Is All Grown Up: Another frequent show topic is women who were nerds growing up but have evolved into beautiful young women, often with the help of breast implants and other cosmetic surgery. If their stage antics are to be believed, we have every reason to think they now work as strippers. Men are sometimes featured on this type of show, and as expected, they're always muscle-bound beefcakes.

Slut-Shaming: The studio audience will do to female guests during the following:

When a woman finds out that the guy she thinks is the father of her child isn't.note As mentioned at Mood Whiplash and The Unfair Sex: Man comes out. Crowd boos. "You are not the father." Crowd cheers. The studio audience is always on the woman's side until this happens. This is especially egregious if a female guest test multiple men for her child or children.

When a woman is revealed to be a cheater.

When one female guest is revealed to have slept with another guest's man.

When a female guest shows no remorse when their promiscuity hurts their current or ex-boyfriend/husband.

If they are out of control teens.

Stripperific: Many of the out of control teens wear very revealing clothing.

Suicide Dare: Women who are looking for their babies' daddies sometimes say this when the possible daddy is particularly belligerent about paternity. Subverted in that the daddies (probably) aren't suicidal.

Teen Pregnancy: Some of the mothers who comes on the show for a DNA test are teens. Infamously, the youngest mother to ever appear on the show for a DNA test wasn't even a teenager yet. She was twelve, and the 13-year-old boy she tested was not the father.

On a cheating episode, if a guy says "After today, she has got to change [and stop accusing me]", there's at least an 80% chance he's cheating.

The higher percent "sure" a woman is that a man is the father of her baby, the lower percent chance he actually is the father.

If the guy being accused kisses his girlfriend/wife when he walks onstage, he's usually telling the truth.

Guests who smile before or after a result is read, almost always gives themselves away that they are/were lying about something.

If a home DNA test is mentioned, and subsequently disregarded for the Maury DNA test, the home DNA test is almost always proven right.

If a woman brings two men on for respective DNA tests, and one of them happens to be the guy she cheated on her significant other with, or even slept with when they were on a break, there's a good chance that neither of them will be the father, which comes with the double gut punch that the woman's cheating is even more widespread than the boyfriend thought.

If a man brings a woman on because he doubts paternity due to cheating, it will usually require both a DNA and lie detector test. If Maury reads the results of the DNA test first, not only will the man always be the father, but his girlfriend/wife will pass the lie detector test as well. Conversely, if a woman takes a lie detector test in conjunction with a DNA test to prove her innocence and Maury reads the lie detector test first, the woman will always fail or admit to questions on the lie detector test.

If Maury says that he going to give a guest a chance to tell the truth before he reads the results of a lie detector test, the guest will almost always confess. Despite this, some guests will still attempt to downplay some of their misdeeds.

As mentioned at Foregone Conclusion, if multiple men are involved for a DNA test, the guy that is mentioned first will not be the father of a child.

If a guest refuse to answer certain questions during a lie detector test, they will almost always give away that whatever is being asked is true.

Usually, the parents of the out of control teen girls claim that their daughters were once sweet, loving, and innocent and they don't know why they've chosen to act out.

In a specific, non-out of control teen related example, we have Moyisha, who was a recurring paternity guest. During her first couple of appearances, she didn't act especially off putting, despite the numerous men she tested. However, her behavior took a turn for the worse during her 4th appearance. First, she insults and curses out the potential father's sister and mother for simply stating that they didn't believe that the baby was related to them. Then, she tries to physically attack the sister and mom when they came out onstage for virtually no reason and curses the mom again after she says that the baby is not her son's. Moyisha also makes it a point to harrass the mother and sister for child support before the results are read. After Moyisha receives a short "The Reason You Suck" Speech from the sister, the results are read and the guy was not the father.

Emma. Let's start with her first appearance where she wanted to prove that a man named Michael fathered her son, Elijah. The twist: Emma actually lured Michael away from her own cousin, Kenyetta, who wanted to prove that he fathered her daughter too. With all that in mind, Michael was not the father of either child. After that, Emma brought on three more potential men; all three were not Elijah's dad. This did not stop Emma from browbeating those three after the results and demanding that they take care of her kid regardless. Addarius got the worst of her abuse, by far. That said, seeing how hurt she was after the fourth negative test pushed her into jerkass woobie territory.

Simone was always infamous for her crude and pushy behavior towards the men (a total of eleven) she tested for the paternity of her son. However, during her last paternity appearance, she is worse than ever, she proudly admits to harassing the eleventh potential father, flat out telling him that her son is his, despite there already being ten other possibilities, and to top it all off, she hushes him when he tries to speak, saying that "speaking to a real man (Maury)". The man was not the father.

Ayriel. She was fine on her first appearance, despite having cheated on her husband Matt after he had saved her life as a child, she was remorseful and wanted to build a life with him. On her second appearance, she had left Matt for another man and was openly bashing him despite acknowledging that she cheated again. Admittingly, Matt wasn't exactly cordial either, but who can blame him?

Almost all the clips shown on what happens next before the commercial break always spoil (mostly with the lie detector/DNA test episodes) due to showing the guests' reaction to the results without actually showing the viewer the results.

Some episodes subvert this by showing an unrelated clip of the audience acting like the test said someone was not the father, when it was actually the opposite.

Yet another episode resorted to a Quote Mine. A cheating mother, an affair kept secret for 22 years, with a daughter whose father might not actually be her father. The trailer that came before the DNA test showed the man saying "I never want to see you again". However, the DNA test revealed that the man was the father, and when he talked to the mother he said, "I was thinking 'I never want to see you again', but I decided to be there for our daughter, even if she isn't mine." A classic bait and switch.

Tranquil Fury: When bickering guests piss Maury off, especially during DNA test episodes, he shows this in spades. The best indicator that he's angry is when he does not even bother to calm the guests down; he goes straight to the producer for the envelope.

Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Another recurring subject on the show, with out of control teens and preteens. These kids claim to drink, smoke, do drugs and even engage in prostitution.

Tsundere: Almost every single guest on the show, male or female, with the exception being the majority of the mothers of the wild teen girls and almost all of the significant others of the abusive men. Expect guests to be screaming their heads off at each other and making up tearfully a minute later after hearing favorable paternity/lie detector results.

Cheating men are always treated as evil, while cheating women are treated as Wounded Gazelles.

A woman can bring on upwards of a dozen men for DNA tests. The men, who have every right to be doubtful they're the father at this point, are always booed off the stage when they say this.note Although they aren't really doing themselves any favors by making a loud, obnoxious scene.

Men that sleep around (allegedly) getting multiple women pregnant are (rightfully) called out for being irresponsible. However, women who have sex with multiple men around the time of their pregnancy are rarely called out for their irresponsibility and are treated more sympathetically. This is especially egregious if a woman brings several men on the show to determine the paternity of one child or has multiple children by multiple men.

This applies to teenagers; every time the show focuses on out of control teenagers, it always shows that girls are the problem.

A 20 year old woman was accusing a 14 year old boy of being her baby daddy. Thankfully, he wasn't, but the fact that she wasn't in prison makes no sense. Imagine what would have happened if the genders were reversed.

The same scenario (unfortunately) took place with a 14 year old girl and an 18 year old boy, and the age issue was glossed over in this case as well. Though, the man could've been with the girl when he was 17 in this case.

From time to time, men will use a home DNA test to determine if a child is his. If it comes up negative, the women will always claim that the test is wrong or corrupted. Every time the home DNA test said the man wasn't the father, the Maury DNA test has said the same thing. Maury, however, still treats the home DNA tests as insufficient evidence that the man is not the child's father. Ironically, Maury occasionally promotes home DNA tests from DNA Diagnostics Center before a commercial break.

In one notable subversion of this, a woman had two men who were possibly the father of her child. This seemed like a regular paternity segment until it was revealed that both men didn't know each other and each thought he was the father, presumably in an effort to bilk them both for money. She was rightfully called out for her behavior and booed.

Men accusing women of cheating are generally booed and looked at as being monsters as well, sometimes even after the results show they were right. On the inverse, the audience is always on the side of a woman accusing a man of cheating.

If a man fails even one question of a lie detector test, he is a monster that is booed off the stage and the woman crucifies him for lying and then leaves him. It doesn't matter what the question was that he failed, or if he also passed much more important ones (such as not having sex with other women), the outcome is almost always the same. Women, however, seem to be able to get away with failing their lie detector tests entirely if it turns out that the man accusing her is the father of her baby. As a result, her misdeeds will usually get glossed over.

Men that use women for any reason are usually called out for being selfish. Women that use men, however, are rarely called out for this unless they are very unpleasant. For example, in one segment, a female guest came on the show because she was unsure if her current boyfriend or her ex-boyfriend was the father of her child. Making matters worse, both men wanted to be the father, they didn't like each other, and all three lived in the same house. While she claimed that sleeping with her ex was a huge mistake, it was obvious that she was using both men. The DNA test revealed that her current boyfriend was the father. Her ex was completely devastated by the results.

One guest actually called out the audience on this after being accused of being his ex-girlfriend's baby's father. He had stormed off backstage after being heckled when trying to give an explanation for his denial.note He claimed as soon as they broke up, his girlfriend was sexually active with several men and they had use mostly protection while they were dating. He was proven right and yet he still had to be convinced to return back onstage. He only came out to receive an apology from his ex for embarrassing him on national television and wrongly accusing him.

Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: In one episode, an out of control teen named Rayletha planned on having a baby. She listed all the ridiculous names she's considering for her baby, one of which was Courvoisier.note On top of that, she pronounces it incorrectly. When Maury asked her if she knew what that's the name of, she responded "A LIQUOR! WHAT I DRANK!"

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy